


Goodbye

by eerian_sadow



Series: speedwriting [31]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Alcohol, Cancer, Community: tf-speedwriting, Community: tf_speedwriting, Death, F/M, Moving On, Purgatory, canon character death, the afterlife, the ones left behind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-29
Updated: 2012-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-09 20:32:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1996848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eerian_sadow/pseuds/eerian_sadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carly has been battling cancer for years.  Some battles aren't able to be won.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> **BRING YOUR TISSUES. BRING YOUR WHOLE BOX OF TISSUES.**
> 
>  
> 
> written for tf_speedwriting for Prompt No.4: "The Other Side." (As in a supernatural sense)

_She stood at a fork in the road. No signs indicated which way to go and she really had no idea where she was. There was no breeze to blow back the hair that hung heavy on her shoulders--longer and thicker than it had been since before the cancer--and sound to fill the silence. There was only the road, and the fork. She couldn’t even see a destination off in the distance._

_Carly wondered what the point was. No one made a road that went nowhere, even if the traveller couldn’t remember why there were on it._

_She sat down, rather than choose a path and get lost. Surely someone would be along soon._

“I’m sorry. There’s nothing more we can do, Mister Witwicky. It’s just a matter of time now. I think you should call your family home.”

“Thank you, Doctor. We will.” Daniel let himself go weak in the knees and sink down next to his father on the uncomfortable hallway bench. “We can still see her, right? Til the end?”

The doctor gave them a smile that was probably meant to be comforting. “Of course. Just remember that she’s unlikely to respond to you.”

“We’ll remember.” Spike put a hand on his son’s shoulder before standing up. He headed into his wife’s room, brave face firmly in place. 

Daniel stayed in the hall, until he was sure his tears had stopped falling.

_Wherver she was, time didn’t seem to be passing. It wasn’t getting dark, the sun wasn’t moving. Shadows didn’t fall on the ground. This place was stuck in some kind of limbo, and it was starting to creep her out._

_The familiar red, white and blue Seeker strutting up the left-hand path didn’t do much to reassure her, either._

_“Well, well,” Starscream cackled. “If it isn’t Ironhide’s favorite pet. I should have known one of you would end up here eventually.”_

_“And where exactly is here?” Carly asked._

_Starscream stared at her for a moment before laughing hysterically._

Her face was peaceful, Daniel realized. Not pinched with the pain she’d been feeling from the cancer or slack from the pain drugs they had been giving her. There was none of the confusion she’d suffered off and on. Just calm, soothing peacefulness--like this was what she had wanted all along.

And maybe, after the cancer had broken her apart, it was.

Daniel swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat. He wasn’t ready to lose his mother, not yet. They were both still too young. He wasn’t even out of college yet.

“Danny,” Rodimus said from the window. “Come here.”

The youngest member of the Witwicky clan turned and crossed the room to the window. Roddy was holding up one hand at just the perfect height for Daniel to climb out onto it.

He did, and let his oldest friend hold him close while he cried out his grief again.

_Carly was too distracted by the cackling Seeker to notice a third figure joining them on the path._

_“Is this punk botherin’ you, darlin’?”_

_She turned in a sort of comical slow motion at the familiar voice. “Ironhide?”_

_“Yep.” The red mech grinned at her. “You want me to run him off for ya?”_

_“It’s... no.” Realization of where she must be dawned on her with sudden horror. “Am I dead?”_

_“Not if you’re here,” Starscream snered. “If you’re here, you haven’t been stupid enough to let go yet.”_

_She glanced at the Seeker for a moment, then looked bakc to Ironhide. “Hide? Am I?”_

_“Not yet.” He reached down to brush a lock of hair out of her face. “I came to escort ya, when you were ready to go.”_

_“But I’m not ready! Danny isn’t even out of school yet! And there’s no one else to sponsor my grad student! And Spike needs me to go over the treaty with Xedrix IV and **I’m not ready**!”_

_“Take your time, darlin’. I ain’t goin’ anywhere.”_

_“Oh, you sicken me with your sap!” Starscream stomped past them and down the path. “Grow a spinal strut, woman! Everything dies!”_

_“But I’m not finished living...”_

The first thing he noticed when he came back with his coffee was that his mother was frowning. It wasn’t a painful sort of frown, but held that same kind of sorrow that his father’s did right now. It made him tear up again just to see it.

Careful not to disturb his fitfully sleeping father, he moved to her side and took her hand. It was thin and limp and felt fragile when he squeezed. Daniel didn’t let it stop him; he leaned over to kiss her cheek.

“I love you, mom. And I know this is it, so just go find your next big discovery, okay? Dad and I can make it.”

He thought her lips turned up at the corners, just a little, before the heart monitor went flat.

_”Ironhide?” Carly turned her questioning gaze on her old friend. “I can’t go back, can I? Even if I’m not ready to leave.”_

_“No, I don’t think you can. Not unless you’re willing to be like Starscream. And I wouldn’t’ve wished that fate on **him**.”_

_She nodded slowly. “Then I guess there’s no point in dragging this out. Let’s roll.”_

_“That’s my girl.” Ironhide lowed a hand to her and let her climb on. Then he raised her to his shoulder so that she could ride in her favorite spot. The wind came up at last, blowing blond hair across her face and down toward the right-hand path._

_Ironhide and Carly set off on the wind’s path, following it into the next world._


	2. To Absent Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter contains alcohol use and mentions of canon character death, as well as mentions of a cross-species relationship (human/robot).
> 
> for tf_speedwriting filling the Prompt 1: Setting: In a graveyard at midnight

“A toast to absent friends,” Spike said, holding up a glass of deep red wine.

“To absent friends,” Rodimus echoed holding out a cube of high grade energon.

They tapped their containers together, respective liquids sloshing slightly. Rodimus tried not to think about how little difference in color there was between their drinks and the fluids they bled out when damaged. Spike simply took a drink.

“You think she’s lonely without you?” Rodimus looked toward the headstone making Carly’s grave.

“Not a chance,” the human replied before draining his wine glass. “She’s too busy catching up with Ironhide to have time to miss me.”

“Ironhide?” The Prime sipped at his energon.

“They were an item, for a while.” Spike shrugged one shoulder. “Her parents didn’t approve, so she married me. I always loved her, but she didn’t love me the same way.”

“That’s... awful.” Rodimus stared down into his energon. “Why would you chose to mate with her, when you knew she didn’t want you?”

“We were happy. I never felt like I was losing out.” He refilled his wine glass, then set the bottle down on the tomb holding Carly’s body. “It was a good life and I’m glad we got to share it.”

“Then I’m glad you did, too.” The Cybertronian gave the human a half-smile. “Especially since Danny wouldn't exist without it.”

Spike raised his refilled glass in another salute. “Here, here.”

Rodimus sipped at his energon again, thoughtfully. After a long moment, he stood and walked to Ironhide’s crypt. He pulled a second cube of high grade from his subspace pocket and set it down in front the weapon master’s tomb.

“Take care of her, Ironhide. You guys have all the time in the universe now.”

Spike brushed his greying hair out of his eyes and smiled.


End file.
